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PCDI talks new businesses

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Members of Prowers County Development Incorporated (PCDI) had a lively discussion about economic Development April 26, despite the fact that it didn't have a quorum.

Commissioner Ron Cook said they met the night after the Progressive Urban Management Associates (PUMA) toured the area and they had a real good discussion with Donnie McBee, Dale Mauch and Don Higbee about water.

"There were a lot of concerns and they were coming up with a lot of alternatives that can be grown," he said.

He said "a couple of those guys" are willing to try a couple of different sections of land to see what works and what doesn't work.

"We were meeting with a couple of the old people from the old school army realm and they want to try something different," he said.

PCDI President Rick Robbins said if you really think about water in Southeast Colorado, the status quo is over 100 years old.

"It was a really nice conversation and you get three water people in your room talking about water and about how complicated water gets on the exchanges," he said. "We're probably 20 years behind thinking about what needs to be done with our water."

Commissioner Wendy Buxton-Andrade said PUMA has researched the yellow pea.

"Dale (Mauch) had just put in a test crop because he heard it was good for sick cattle," she said.

Buxton-Andrade said there is a lot of commitment from a lot of different people.

"That's why the PCDI board was brought into it, the commissioners, the town of Lamar and all of the custodians in the different little small towns," she said.

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If people aren't willing to put the PUMA plan into action, she said it becomes a document on a shelf.

"Just like a lot of these other studies," Buxton-Andrade said.

PUMA can't make it an active document, she said, the people of Prowers County has to make it happen at the county level.

PUMA put some ideas out there "to see if they were in the ballpark," Buxton-Andrade said, and will communicate with the players in the area to "see what we can get ahold of.

"We've got to buy into their ideas," she said.

She said the plan is similar to Healthy Places.

"They came in and did initial things with the community and said you need a skate park and you need a pocket park and you need to expand Escondido Park," she said.

Healthy Places heard the ideas from the people, she said, but they aren't here making it happen.

"We're writing the grants," she said. "Emily (Nieschburg) and Renee (Beebe) are really working on getting the grants and working with the city. That's what has to happen with this."

Business Manager Carla Scranton said Healthy Places go a few steps further.

"They come in and give you steps to push you in the right direction," she said.

Buxton-Andrade said they don't disappear.

"They want to see it be successful," she said.

Cook said there isn't a pot of economic development money available.

"Between the city and they county, we're going to have to figure out what incentives we can offer," he said. "We're going to have to bring stuff in here and it's not going to be by revenue."

Cook said there are "three or four companies" looking at expanding in Prowers County.

"You're looking at a community correction facility and that looking at 15-20 jobs and jobs with the ambulance service," he said. "There's potential for 30 new jobs in a short period of time, so we're at that point of starting to change if we can keep the momentum up and not let anybody get past us."

Robbins said luck is where preparation meets opportunity.

"We have to be assembled and ready when somebody stands up and say here," he said.

He noted that any business that started in this area, the business will say getting started is "really frustrating.

"They had this hurdle, they had this hurdle and they had this hurdle," he said.

He said the job of PCDI is to get all the hurdles out of the way.

"That is a larger loudspeaker for your community than anything else," he said.

PCDI will help you through the steps, he said, and not give you a list and say best of luck.

"We're going to help those businesses with those steps," Robbins said.

Farming has been in an expansion mode with operations getting bigger, he said, and higher value concentrated farming is missed.

"Some of the specialty crops and specialty water hydroponic things," he said.

Robbins said his goal is one stop shopping for economic development.

"For any success of magnitude to happen it pretty much has to be that for a business," he said. "They can walk into whoever's door it is for economic development and say once you walk into this door, we are going to provide you with what you need."

If there is a specialty need, Robbins said whoever is ahead of that may have to talk with the city or county.

"If they have to talk to the county commissioners whoever is with them is walking side-by-side," he said. "The whole thing is whatever those businesses are, we hope to be a one-stop shop for Prowers County."

Robbins said the agricultural hemp industry is going to grow with or without Prowers County.

"Hopefully, the people in the area understand the differences between hemp and marijuana," he said. Buxton-Andrade said CSU has the rights to seeds but they are completely taken.

"They have steered us to hemp seed that is federally approved," she said.

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